Generally, in an information processing system having a server, the server is equipped with a system control facility (SCF) for controlling and supervising the entire system, and carries out prescribed processes in response to user requests for power on or power off. In the prior art, a sequence for such processes has been created as a control program to be executed by the SCF. Accordingly, when a portion of the process sequence is altered, the control program has to be created once again. However, altering a control program involves a laborious task, and there has been the problem that, when altered, the control program tends to become complicated.
Further, in the prior art control, the state of the process sequence has been judged from the system status. Accordingly, it has been difficult to manage resume processing that is necessary when an SCF is rebooted or concurrent processing that allows a plurality of process sequences to run at the same time. Further, in a system employing a dual-SCF configuration, a similar problem occurs when resuming the process sequence after switching from one SCF to the other, and it has been difficult to determine which process is to be executed when resuming.